They’re Not Green: Documentary

Synopsis: For a period extending over thirty years, the wind power industry, its lobbyists and a host of U.S. politicians have promoted “wind power” as “clean and green.” The color of green does loom large in this cozy arrangement, but it is the color of $$$$$, not clean air. This thoroughly researched documentary film examines the environmental effects of wind power, including its limited impact on reducing CO2 emissions, its potentially negative health implications and its contributions to soil erosion due to the degradation and destruction of the surrounding vegetation. It also explains the difference between wind energy, capacity and generation, revealing the startling variance between what’s promised and what’s actually delivered. What little the consumer finally receives in the way of electricity comes at the price of hidden tax subsidies that benefit few at the cost of many. They’re Not Green takes the viewer from the wind industry in California, where it all began, to the larger national canvas where it has evolved into the most highly subsidized, least productive form of energy in the U. S. today.

Interviewing noted researchers, including biologists, electrical engineers, meteorologists, environmentalists and physicists, Pena questions the ability of the wind power industry to do anything more than further burden the already wounded American taxpayer. Physicians discuss the clinical and financial difficulties of treating “Wind Turbine Syndrome”, a horror show of aliments including respiratory failure, vertigo and seizures, found among people living near turbine farms. Mechanical engineers reveal that the concrete base for each turbine produces at least 250,000 pounds of CO2 between manufacture and installation. The 125-foot blades are made from fiberglass and resins that cannot, with today’s technology, be broken down. Anything but green, they are absolutely not biodegradable. Other Western nations are now wrestling with the problem of eliminating huge mountains of turbine trash. If the U.S. continues on its present course, we too will be faced with this dilemma — a problem not unlike that of disposing of nuclear waste.

In the rush to address the threat of global warming, Federal and State mandates are encouraging the development of alternative energy, often without considering the long-term consequences of these incentives. Wind power developers, politicians and The U.S. Bureau of Land Management have coalesced into a force that violate land covenants and create variances suitable to developers without any citizen accountability. California Senator Dianne Feinstein, along with environmental groups, is struggling to preserve California’s fragile, desert Eco-systems but there is no guarantee who will win. This fight is being played out in rural towns across America.

Some of the largest civic protests in recent memory have taken place in the Western democracies of France, Italy, Spain, the UK, Denmark and Scotland. While there has been little, if any, news coverage in the American press, these incidents have spoken volumes to politicians overseas. As the layers of toxic-turbine debris pile up, global energy conglomerates such as Iberdrola, omnipresent in the sands of California, continue to maintain they are Green.